Thursday, May 1, 2014

Savannah to Townsend, TN to Eureka Springs to Newell


From Cape Canaveral we headed to Savannah because I had some work on St. Simon’s Island, about an hour south.  Found a fairly good KOA about 30 miles south of Savannah, spent a couple of interesting days there.  Would recommend a walking tour with Savannah Dan. There are also trolley tours and a good riverfront walk.  Wonderful, historic, most southern city!

From there we headed to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the timing was ideal for dogwood and red bud.  Found another KOA in Townsend TN, as they are quite predictable and accommodating although I had an argument with a tree limb and lost.  Caused a small amount of damage to the PS awning cover,  Sawed off the limb, about 5 inches in diameter and parked successfully although dragged a little gravel going in and out of the space.  Took the loop tour in the national park, very worthwhile and spent another day in and around Gatlnburg.  Be sure to visit Elvira’s Restaurant if you get near Townsend.  It’s on the Wears Valley Road.   AND, if you are going to Townsend, it’s better to come in from the north off of I-40 at Knoxville through Marysville.
Then it was off to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for a few days and we would recommend a visit to The Stone House for a real wine/beer treat and a nice big cheese plate.  Rather European in feel and taste and great service by the owners, Rob and Amanda.  We also made visit # 2 to Bentonville from the KOA campground just outside of Eureka Springs and re-visited Crystal Bridges, Alice Walton’s fabulous museum of American Art.  William Paley’s collection was on loan from MOMA and it was such a treat to see the Monets, Picassos, Gaugins, and others.  Alice is getting ready to move a Frank Lloyd Wright house from New Jersey to the musem grounds this summer, saving it from the floods in NJ.  Kudos to her!

Headed to Oklahoma City for a few days to visit with some kids and grandkids, parked at Twin Fountains, bad inclines in and out of a level spot above the office.  Avoid that if you go there.
I did raise the rear end going out and that helped a lot, thanks for the suggestions.  Also found out later that we were about an inch and half too low in the rear and a little high in the front and that was adjusted at Newell along with our list of 23 other items, mostly small annoying stuff although they did replace a Mach 5 water pump that kept throwing an error message.  Had some issues with air in the lines that is corrected fairly easily by just letting some faucets run open for awhile.

Our appointment at Newell was for April 28, thus we pulled into Camp Newell Sunday afternoon 4/27 and the place was full up.  So we parked up front with the pre-owned coaches and there seem to be a quite a few there at the moment.  There were also some newer ones in for service and perhaps of interest to some a classic '89 owned by Dick and Maura Quirk.  It’s in great shape and they have lived in it full-time for the past ten years.  We are real newbies, both to Newell and to full-timing but enjoying it all, at least for now.  We began this trip at Newell in mid-February and here it is May already. We are in a very funky RV park outside of Guymon, OK having left Miami, OK this morning around 8:30.  Going "home" to Santa Fe for a month and then off to the west coast.  More later.